The Curse of Oak Island show returned last night, and once again I am not planning to watch the series because I find the show unfathomably boring. I tried to sit through the premiere, but I just don’t care about watching old men dig holes—and this show is all about digging big, wet, dirty holes. But the sonar operator working in the 10X site on the island claims that advanced imaging technology indicates a 90% certainty that 10X contains a human skeleton and a treasure chest. I’d be willing give odds that it contains neither since Canadian law (Criminal Code sec. 182) requires law enforcement and (when relevant) certified anthropologists to investigate, record, and report any human remains found in Canada. If the production actually uncovered human remains while they were filming these episodes earlier this year, there would have been a record of it and we should have heard about the discovery long before the episodes made it to air. Do you think History would waste a promotional opportunity like that?

History also debuted Hunting Hitler, another program I have no interest in watching, at least until they start exploring Hitler’s escape into the hollow earth, or how ancient astronauts or Fallen Angels rescued him. The bad reviews the show received (“…cynically trading off Hitler’s name…”) suggest I’m right to ignore it.

We’ll find out tomorrow how many people watched the programs last night.

Meanwhile, I have a few odds and ends to mention on what is otherwise a slow fringe history day.

First, I ended up in a Live Science article yesterday about Ben Carson’s weird pyramid ideas because I found and translated Bernhard von Breydenbach’s 1486 debunking of the claim. What’s weird is that the author of the Live Science article must have read my blog post in order to cite it and link to it, and yet somehow still attributed the claim that the pyramids were the granaries of Joseph to Gregory of Tours in the sixth century when I clearly explain that Julius Honorius was the first to record the claim, based on preexisting folk belief, somewhere between 50 and 150 years earlier.

Carson is as good a reason as any to mention something that happened this week that really made me angry. I try not to comment directly on politics in this blog, but it’s increasingly clear that pseudoscientific ideas about pyramids, creationism, and Fallen Angels/demonic influence are only the visible tip of a larger iceberg, a sort of quasi-acceptable way of forcing a particularly ruthless brand of extremist Christianity into American life. To that end, last week Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal made a joint appearance with Pastor Kevin Swanson at the National Religious Liberties Conference. Swanson is an extremist who emphasized that the Bible demands death for gays, despite claiming that he does not wish to see gay people actually executed until after the government gives them time to convert to heterosexuality and repent their sins.

Another speaker at the conference, Phillip Kayser, distributed a pamphlet calling for the death penalty not just for homosexuality but also for breaking the Sabbath, insulting God, or leaving the Christian religion. However, he said that killing the gays should only be necessary if they sodomize one another in the presence of three or more witnesses.

The conference’s organizers encouraged true Christians to disobey laws they disagreed with, and they asserted that religious liberty applied only to those who have true (i.e. conservative) Christian beliefs, adding that social justice and liberal politics exclude someone from being a true Christian.

Despite appearing at a conference in which Swanson urged Christians to disrupt gay weddings and to advocate for Biblical capital punishment, all three presidential candidates—two of whom are sitting government officials—I can’t find any evidence that any of them condemned Swanson’s remarks or took issue with the idea of government-sanctioned execution of gays.

Swanson, for his part, claimed that criticism of his views on the Rachael Maddow show and other programs was an effort by the liberal media to suppress Christianity.

In short, the kooky ideas about angels and pyramids and Noah’s Ark are a type of Trojan horse, designed to create “harmless” intrusions of Biblical literalism as wedges that can later be expanded into what, in their darkest hearts, reactionary fundamentalists hope will be a counter-revolution that will install an oppressive conservative theocracy.

Finally, I need to mention something that I don’t want to give too much attention. You will remember that in the spring a Canadian gigantologist named Scott Reaney (a.k.a. S. M. Raen) falsely accused me of stealing public domain newspaper articles from him and then accused me of being a member of ISIS and a pedophile. Reaney decided this week to start harassing me again, launching a blog called “Jason Colavito - Fraud” on the Canadian Blogspot website in which he repeated his libelous claims alongside pictures of me, writing them in the first person as though they were my words and larded with personal insults and juvenile name-calling. This would appear to be an act of what Canadian law terms “defamatory libel,” a criminal offense in Canada.

The trouble is that I don’t live in Canada, and I have no idea what the procedure is to try to stop an obviously troubled person from harassing me with a campaign of vile and disgusting lies. If there are any Canadian lawyers in my audience, I’d be grateful to find out what I can do from another country and with no money to sue him across borders.

I’m not linking to the blog because I don’t want to raise its Google rankings.

An excellent site for anyone even considering falling for the treasure hoax on Oak Island should visit:

http://www.criticalenquiry.org/oakisland/index.shtml

It is an incredibly comprehensive dismantling by Richard Joltes.

I haven't caught the season premiere for season three as of yet, but as the dig site for 10X was originally determined decades ago by Dan Blankenship using dowsing... well, that's really all you need to know. But as you'll see from the facts uncovered by Joltes, the entire myth was constructed by successive generations, building upon hearsay built upon hearsay, and there was no true written record of even the hint of treasure before 1849; a year which should ring a bell. Even the fabled 90 foot stone, which allegedly was found in the early 1800's, was never traced nor photographed and the inscription didn't even appear in any publication until 1948. Yet this gem from Prometheus Entertainment treats it, and countless other non sequiturs as established fact. I mean... flood tunnels as booby traps? Like wooden lined tunnels could bring seawater hundreds of yards in at a depth of 90 feet and remain working for over 200 years? If only metal plumbing beneath our cities could last that long. No, it's called the Windsor Formation which allows for underground, naturally occurring channels which have been confirmed by each and every true scientific study that ever took place there dating back to over a hundred and fifty years. But no, haven't you heard the one where they once struck something hard and then decided to take a break because it was either too dark or they had to go to church (depending upon which story you'd like to believe), then they come back the next day and those darned flood tunnels went to work. Yeah, like that's how human nature works. You strike gold and decide that's a good time for a break. Even the initial story is wholly ridiculous. I mean, you leave a tackle block hanging over soft earth where you just buried the Ark of the Covenant? Wouldn't the more prudent conclusion be that something was dug up and taken? As if it even ever happened, that is.

Marty Lugina is an attorney, an engineer and a millionaire. I can't imagine that he never did his homework before investing in what has to be spectacle geared more to potential tourism and reality show profits than actual treasure.

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Tristan

11/11/2015 05:35:37 pm

They had a companion preview show with a guy who wrote an article about Oak Island in Rolling Stone ten years ago. I haven't watched the latest episode yet, but I admire the show and its producer's ability to manufacture drama and suspense out of digging holes in the ground. This season should have some more fringe theory visitors coming to Oak Island sometimes.

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Mike Jones

11/11/2015 08:31:36 pm

Thank you for the link to the Oak Island website. It is much more fun and intriguing than the TV show.

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Mike Bromlely

11/12/2015 01:23:35 am

"Smithsonian Admits to Destruction of Thousands of Giant Human Skeletons in Early 1900′s" Hey Jason, not only did the US Supreme get involved but the Smithsonian openly admits to destroying "tens of thousands" skeletons of GIANTS all over the world because of order from the "higher ups" Read it and weep

Mike, "Smithsonian Admits to Destruction of Thousands of Giant Human Skeletons in Early 1900's" is an article, dated December 3, 2014, from the World News Daily Report website. Let me quote from the sites disclaimer page... "WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle." Let the weeping begin.

Bob Jase

11/12/2015 04:21:53 pm

Thanks for the link, got me some good reading to do.

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Joe Scales

11/13/2015 10:48:54 am

What fun it would be if the Curse of Oak Island cast would entertain Richard Joltes in their war room for an episode. Of course the show will not entertain one iota of actual skepticism for this myth, other than Marty pretending that he needs to be "convinced". I think another network would do well to cash in on portraying the actual truths behind the hoax at this point, and put the History Channel to shame in doing so.

Pam

11/11/2015 01:43:29 pm

The crazy crap that came out of this conference is EXACTLY the same garbage that ISIS spouts.

By their definition, I'm not a Christian. People of faith better speak up before we find ourselves wondering why we live in an oppressive theocracy.

Bobby Jindal calls himself an "evangelical Catholic ". He's an ass, warping the faith for his own political gain. The anti -gay rhetoric is appalling and criminal.

The Hitler program was awful. ..it was like watching AU but with the swastika replacing the hooked x .

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Kal

11/11/2015 01:54:58 pm

In Canada, freedom of speech is different, but you could get some pro bono libel guy on that article by that SMR dude, for sure. It is chuck full of obvious childish slights and insults. Or you could just block him from seeing your blogs and block his email from seeing yours.

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Not the Comte de Saint Germain

11/11/2015 03:40:36 pm

"Another speaker at the conference, Phillip Kayser, distributed a pamphlet calling for the death penalty not just for homosexuality but also for breaking the Sabbath, insulting God, or leaving the Christian religion."

So he would allow people to convert to Christianity, of course, but people who convert from Christianity to something else would be punished by death. Using civic laws.

You know where they do that? Muslim countries. Specifically, crazy Muslim countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia. Even a lot of Muslim countries with a strong fundamentalist presence, like Egypt and Pakistan, don't impose a direct death penalty for apostasy. For all the Christian railing about how awful Islam is—and it is true that violence and intolerance are more widely accepted in most Muslim cultures than in most Western Christian nations—the Islamic and Christian fundamentalists look an awful lot like two sides of the same coin.

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Not the Comte de Saint Germain

11/11/2015 03:49:10 pm

Oh, and I just realized that if there were such a law, my own mother would be subject to the death penalty, because, unlike me, she was once a Christian.

I have never sworn on this blog, but @$%& #¡¶ ¢§! *€&¡ €!@# ∞§¶ !¡$%^*&*^!!!!

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Pam

11/12/2015 01:11:12 pm

What I find so incredibly stupid is that these men who are proposing such stupidity claim the bible as their source for such draconian ideas and yet, in that same bible , death for apostasy is never mentioned.

In the New Testament there is an instance where many walked away from Jesus because of a "hard teaching ".

Never does it state, "and then the apostles rose up and killed the ones who fell away. "

These people are ignorant.
They're no different than the fundamentalist Muslims they demonize.

Shane Sullivan

11/12/2015 01:31:33 pm

More ignorant, in fact. Capital punishment for apostasy at least comes up in the Hadith, but as you said, not in the New Testament.

Kathleen Smith

11/11/2015 04:02:17 pm

I just read your post interacting with this Scott Reaney from the spring. That is one scary dude, you should just leave him alone.

He has a Disqus account.
https://disqus.com/by/scottreaney/
His contributions there suggest that, while certainly not a humble person, he despises Fox News, so he can't be all bad.

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Clete

11/11/2015 05:35:41 pm

I was unable to sleep last night, so I made the mistake of watching "Hunting Hitler". It like America Unearthed, recapped what was shown five minutes before after every commercial break. So, that in a program lasting a hour (it seemed longer) there was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes of actual content. Whoever made that piece of shit must have never read a history or bio of Adolph Hitler. He did not escape from the bunker, both he and Eva Braun committed suicide and their bodies were badly cremated by the SS guard detachment. Some of their remains were recovered by the Russians when the bunker was captured and sent back to Moscow, where they were buried in KGB storage for the next sixty years. When finally examined by, it was determined that the remains were those of Hitler and Eva Braun.

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rex norman

11/11/2015 07:11:35 pm

Without a doubt, Hunting Hitler is the worst waste of electrons ever to pass though a tv screen. Classic bait and switch formula. Yes, The Hystery Channel needs to hunt for new programming execs.

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Bob Jase

11/12/2015 04:25:08 pm

Actually the skull fragment supposedly from Hitler has female dna so as evidence its crap. Everyone knows Hitler became the Hate-Monger and stopping him is what earned Nick Fury the directorship of SHIELD.

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Clete

11/13/2015 01:34:39 pm

Not really surprising, the Russians mishandled the evidence both in Berlin and Moscow. The scene and storage area in Moscow were both contaminated by handlers DNA. The evidence was based on the teeth, the Russians found and took the dental records from both Hitler and Eva Brauns dentist. These are what was used to identify the remains.

Only Me

11/11/2015 10:26:22 pm

"Swanson, for his part, claimed that criticism of his views on the Rachael Maddow show and other programs was an effort by the liberal media to suppress Christianity."

No, that was the media highlighting the fucked up mentality of a CINO, who was apparently encouraged by the past activities of other fucked up CINOs, like the Westboro Baptist Church.

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Nobody Knows

11/12/2015 12:32:46 am

All this sectarianism within Christianity.
Bad for the digestion.

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Only Me

11/12/2015 01:08:06 am

Move along, Nobody. You're predictable and boring.

Nobody Knows

11/12/2015 06:51:32 am

Hey, not everybody is obtuse because of silly agendas.

An Over-Educated Grunt

11/12/2015 11:29:06 am

What are you talking about, sectarianism? Don't you know there's only one Christian Church? You said so yourself!

But that would be bad for the digestion - or at least hard to swallow.

Only Me

11/12/2015 02:21:56 pm

I agree, Nobody. Not everyone, but YOU are.

vicki

11/12/2015 11:07:14 am

Perhaps reach out to Mark Steyn. I believe he has fought back in Canada in a similar vein. He might point you in The right direction.

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Tony

11/12/2015 12:29:20 pm

The linked review of "Hunting Hitler" by Variety nailed it, and is funny to boot.

Favorite lines: "In fact, if viewers were to take a shot of alcohol every time someone uses a phrase like, 'There could have been …' or, 'There’s a chance that Hitler might have come here …' or, 'If there was in fact a bunker …,' they would be plastered by the second or third commercial break."

Most disheartening line: "History notes that the program will air in more than 180 countries." Ach!

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Joe Scales

11/12/2015 01:41:50 pm

And Joseph Stalin gets another good, hearty laugh in from the grave.

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Bob Jase

11/13/2015 01:53:19 pm

Does he? DOES HE? Or did Stalin have his head grafted onto a Russian ape-human hybrid when his body died?

Kal

11/12/2015 01:48:38 pm

The show runners have read the line from Mien Komph, if you tell a lie enough, people will believe it. I don't know what else the book said. Just that.

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Clint Knapp

11/12/2015 04:07:10 pm

The title of the book is Mein Kampf, and that quote does not appear in it. What Hitler spoke of was the Big Lie, in which he posited that one could tell a lie so big that no one would believe one could distort the truth in such a fashion.

At best you could be referring to the belief Joseph Goebbels coined the phrase, but again you would be mistaken as no reliable sources exist to trace it to Goebbels.

Of course, others attribute it to Lenin.

Either way, five minutes of research or a simple search to check the spelling would have been beneficial to this attempt at... whatever it is you were attempting to do.

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Bob Jase

11/12/2015 04:27:18 pm

Ironically the Money Pit does have a bottom somewhere down there while the HC is a bottomless pit.

Now excuse me, I have to watch the new documentary about Bigfoot being captured.

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About Me

I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.